Articles

This week marks the 150th anniversary of two pivotal Union victories during the American Civil War: Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The Battle of Gettysburg is widely known. Sparked by Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of northern territory, where he hoped to put the Union on the defensive, the three-day clash…

California's state health-care exchange, Covered California, will channel one million dollars into a Los Angeles school district program to train students to be messengers for ObamaCare, the Heartland Institute reports. The purpose of the program is to encourage students to promote ObamaCare to their parents and relatives. School staff will…

[caption id="attachment_9894" align="alignright" width="300"] Image: Wikimedia Commons[/caption] On Thursday, the British Geological Survey (BGS) released a report estimating that 1,329 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of shale gas exists in the Bowland shale beneath central Britain. According to the BGS, in the United States, roughly 10 percent of a shale gas…

In this episode of Reason at Large, Craig Biddle answers a question from Amy: "You’ve said that people should be intolerant of Islam. How do you square this with the right to freedom of religion?" In answering, Biddle discusses the difference between respecting rights and being tolerant, the fallacy of…

Did the Miami Heat win the NBA Finals championship against the San Antonio Spurs June 20 because the Heat’s players acted unselfishly, on the premise that “there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’”? That’s the view Magic Johnson—the former pro turned ABC sports analyst—expressed when talking with the Heat’s Dwyane Wade after…

Today the Supreme Court ruled the federal government may not discriminate against gay couples recognized by states as married. By throwing out the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which forbade the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, the Supreme Court ruled that DOMA resulted in “deprivation of an essential…

Regarding Barack Obama’s speech yesterday on so-called “climate change,” the Washington Post asks, “Is Obama waging a ‘war on coal’?”—and answers, “To a large extent, the answer is yes,” in that he is seeking to expand costly regulations of coal-fired plants. But it’s worse than that. Among other things, Obama…

Imagine a romantic opera that features such revolutionary era characters as Paul Revere, Sam Adams, and James Otis. You might understandably assume that such a work had been written a long time ago, when romanticism and the American Revolution were more highly regarded by the culture. This opera, however, was…

Relative freedom and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in Texas continue creating business opportunities and attracting capital investment from around the world. Austria’s largest steel company, Voestalpine, has signed a lease to build a $716 million iron-ore pellet plant in Corpus Christi, Texas. CEO Wolfgang Eder stated, “It would have been impossible…

The Catholic Church claims the late John Paul II enacted a miracle. As if that were not remarkable enough, the pope is alleged to have enacted his miracle posthumously! Nick Squires reports for the Telegraph: The Vatican has secretly attributed a mystery miracle to the late John Paul II, clearing…

[caption id="attachment_9908" align="alignright" width="300"] Image: InSapphoWeTrust[/caption] Should Congress pass a “media shield” law to protect news agencies such as Fox News and the Associated Press from the sorts of government actions recently taken against those organizations by the Department of Justice? The DOJ seized phone records of the AP and…

When Roy Costner IV of Liberty High School delivered his valedictory speech, he chose to express his Christian faith and to recite The Lord’s Prayer—ostensibly as a form of protest against the school district’s new policy of not permitting prayer at graduation ceremonies. Although his speech was met with overwhelming…

Yesterday I appeared on the Larry Elder radio show to discuss the food stamp program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Through Elder, I learned that more than two dozen members of Congress took what they called the SNAP Challenge, through which they protested proposed cuts to…

The well-documented abysmal failure of government schools has prompted a homeschooling boom, as many parents have chosen to retain or regain control of their children’s education instead of leaving it in the hands of the state. One inspiring example comes by way of the Harding family. The parents, Kip and…

The Washington Post has revealed the details of a heroic story that emerged from last year's armed conflict in Mali. In April 2012, the Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Dine invaded the city of Timbuktu and began a reign of terror, destroying historical sites and imposing sharia law. The terrorist leaders…